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Sorry I updated the post as I knew I would leave some things out as I am a mental wreck and this is long and complicated. I don't wear glasses. I have monovisio

Sorry I updated the post as I knew I would leave some things out as I am a mental wreck and this is long and complicated. I don't wear glasses. I have monovision from Lasik done 20 years ago and am starting to have presbyopia in the distance eye but it doesn't cause issues with CCFL displays or reading or anything else. I just have aapprox 3" window 10-12" from my face where neither eye is focusing well but displays are twice that far away and the doctor said it shouldn't matter or need correction. I have tried OTC readers with the close eye lens removed to try and close the gap and it doesn't seem to change this problem. Refresh rates and software filters don't seem to matter so far. I have this strain by a well lit window with great natural light (sometimes oddly enough direct natural light can sort of "overpower" the sharpness of the display and make it look more like E-ink and it SEEMS less bad then but hard to tell once it begins. At night I have 4x 60w incandescents in my room with no real change overall. In stores with intense LED or tube lighting it happens just as fast.

walterbell 8y ago
Can you be more specific about "severe eyestrain"? E.g. if there is pain, where? Eyes dry, red? Difficulty focusing? Peripheral vision? Have you had an eye exam when the strain is present? When the strain is present, what happens if you switch to reading paper? Or switch to distance vision, e.g. looking out the window? How long does it take to recover from the strain when reading or looking into the distance?
- hestipod 8y ago
  The severe issue for the last 5-6 months since trying to use LED panels has been a tingling/tightness sensation around cheeks/nose that spreads to back of head/neck/trapezius turning into pain/ache. If you clench your eyes/face and lean forward you can feel the neck/upper back tighten too and it's all that area which makes me think something is triggering eye muscles to the degree they are making me tense everything else, but I have had lots of "intuition" about this that was never correct. Eyes have always been dry since lasik, esp when living in forced air homes, but drops and blinking don't help this. No redness that stood out to me.No peripheral vision issues. No color distortions/double vision/ weird visual stuff but mild floaters I have had for 20-25 years. It can trigger anywhere from seconds to several minutes depending on the display. I have not had an exam when it's present. No insurance and scheduling/access is not quick. Switching to any reading/distance but the LED displays soothes it with time and I feel no symptoms reading on paper. If its flared badly and other pain/stress/tension is high it can take some hours or a night's sleep to recover. On a good day with only a few min of strain induced, an hour outside is enough. Font size, antialiasing, resolution, different distros, drivers never mattered...even tried an all AMD laptop as some think intel drivers are the culprit but it was worse than most. The old display is supposedly the worst of all specs...low res/glossy/TN/CCFL/ has PWM and not great color gamut etc. Running Xubuntu on it, but that same distro and all others hurt on the LED laptops.
  - joveian 8y ago
    I have no idea why the new displays would be different, but I did discover at one point that medication can affect eyes in surprising and wierdly lighting-device specific ways. In my case, I found that phenibut was causing a light therapy visor to hurt my eyes even on low, although strangely even fairly bright natural light did not. Even without phenibut I have trouble with the visor on high (a ReTimer that I got due to it being more greenish). Later I learned that taurine transpoters can also transport GABA and I suspect that this might have something to do with it (and that people who use high amounts of phenibut for long periods of time may be causing permanant eye damage via retinal taurine depletion). If you are taking medication and are able to try something else for a little while, there is at least a small chance that could help. You may have tried this, but if it is muscle related then massaging your face and/or upper back might help. Not pushing, but grabbing and slowly twisting the muscles or skin. E.g. put three fingers at the bottom of your eye socket and bring your thumb up so it is an inch or a little less away from your second finger, then push your thumb up and fingers 3 and 4 down. You can repeat the same basic twisting motion over much of your face. Another one is grab skin/muscle between your thumb and two fingers and tilt towards the two fingers. Just lifting muscles (as tilting towards your thumb can sometimes do, or grab and lift) can also be quite helpful. In the back of the neck and upper back it is easier to twist the muscle (but avoid the sides of the neck where there are fragile nerves) and additionally skin rolling can be helpful where you put two or three fingers opposite the flat side of your thumb, grab a small amount of skin (and potentially muscle too, although your focus should be on the skin) and then walk your thumb forward with your fingers, such that there is a raised area that moves in front of your thumb. If it feels "crunchy" at all or feels like it is sticking to the muscle (that you can't lift the skin as easily as elsewhere), go over it again until it doesn't, although not necessarily all at once since it can be exceptionally painful in some cases (in that case, just do a little each day and it should eventually not be painful). The twisting can usually be done in a way that affects just the skin or the muscle as well and both can be helpful. Those three techniques (twisting or lifting muscles and twisting or rolling skin) are IMO the most useful ones anywhere on the body you can do them (also don't get too close to most joints), but just applying pressure to muscles doesn't really help in my experience. Lifting muscles on your own back is hard and not necessarily worth aiming for. For the face another good technique if you can is to put down your middle three fingers and keep them in one spot on your skin while moving your hand rapidly within a quarter inch or so of that spot. The muscle/skin adherence particularly tends to happen on legs, most of all upper legs but often both, although the upper back/shoulder area is another area it frequently happens. If you see a massage therapist, look for Shiatsu, Tui-Na, or (not exclusively stretching focused) Thai massage since those styles are more focused on this kind of thing. But there may be quite a bit you can do yourself (depending on your other issues) that can be helpful. I guess it is unlikely to fix the real issue here but might at least help you recover faster.

walterbell 8y ago

Can you be more specific about "severe eyestrain"? E.g. if there is pain, where? Eyes dry, red? Difficulty focusing? Peripheral vision? Have you had an eye exam when the strain is present? When the strain is present, what happens if you switch to reading paper? Or switch to distance vision, e.g. looking out the window? How long does it take to recover from the strain when reading or looking into the distance?

hestipod 8y ago
The severe issue for the last 5-6 months since trying to use LED panels has been a tingling/tightness sensation around cheeks/nose that spreads to back of head/neck/trapezius turning into pain/ache. If you clench your eyes/face and lean forward you can feel the neck/upper back tighten too and it's all that area which makes me think something is triggering eye muscles to the degree they are making me tense everything else, but I have had lots of "intuition" about this that was never correct. Eyes have always been dry since lasik, esp when living in forced air homes, but drops and blinking don't help this. No redness that stood out to me.No peripheral vision issues. No color distortions/double vision/ weird visual stuff but mild floaters I have had for 20-25 years. It can trigger anywhere from seconds to several minutes depending on the display. I have not had an exam when it's present. No insurance and scheduling/access is not quick. Switching to any reading/distance but the LED displays soothes it with time and I feel no symptoms reading on paper. If its flared badly and other pain/stress/tension is high it can take some hours or a night's sleep to recover. On a good day with only a few min of strain induced, an hour outside is enough. Font size, antialiasing, resolution, different distros, drivers never mattered...even tried an all AMD laptop as some think intel drivers are the culprit but it was worse than most. The old display is supposedly the worst of all specs...low res/glossy/TN/CCFL/ has PWM and not great color gamut etc. Running Xubuntu on it, but that same distro and all others hurt on the LED laptops.
- joveian 8y ago
  I have no idea why the new displays would be different, but I did discover at one point that medication can affect eyes in surprising and wierdly lighting-device specific ways. In my case, I found that phenibut was causing a light therapy visor to hurt my eyes even on low, although strangely even fairly bright natural light did not. Even without phenibut I have trouble with the visor on high (a ReTimer that I got due to it being more greenish). Later I learned that taurine transpoters can also transport GABA and I suspect that this might have something to do with it (and that people who use high amounts of phenibut for long periods of time may be causing permanant eye damage via retinal taurine depletion). If you are taking medication and are able to try something else for a little while, there is at least a small chance that could help. You may have tried this, but if it is muscle related then massaging your face and/or upper back might help. Not pushing, but grabbing and slowly twisting the muscles or skin. E.g. put three fingers at the bottom of your eye socket and bring your thumb up so it is an inch or a little less away from your second finger, then push your thumb up and fingers 3 and 4 down. You can repeat the same basic twisting motion over much of your face. Another one is grab skin/muscle between your thumb and two fingers and tilt towards the two fingers. Just lifting muscles (as tilting towards your thumb can sometimes do, or grab and lift) can also be quite helpful. In the back of the neck and upper back it is easier to twist the muscle (but avoid the sides of the neck where there are fragile nerves) and additionally skin rolling can be helpful where you put two or three fingers opposite the flat side of your thumb, grab a small amount of skin (and potentially muscle too, although your focus should be on the skin) and then walk your thumb forward with your fingers, such that there is a raised area that moves in front of your thumb. If it feels "crunchy" at all or feels like it is sticking to the muscle (that you can't lift the skin as easily as elsewhere), go over it again until it doesn't, although not necessarily all at once since it can be exceptionally painful in some cases (in that case, just do a little each day and it should eventually not be painful). The twisting can usually be done in a way that affects just the skin or the muscle as well and both can be helpful. Those three techniques (twisting or lifting muscles and twisting or rolling skin) are IMO the most useful ones anywhere on the body you can do them (also don't get too close to most joints), but just applying pressure to muscles doesn't really help in my experience. Lifting muscles on your own back is hard and not necessarily worth aiming for. For the face another good technique if you can is to put down your middle three fingers and keep them in one spot on your skin while moving your hand rapidly within a quarter inch or so of that spot. The muscle/skin adherence particularly tends to happen on legs, most of all upper legs but often both, although the upper back/shoulder area is another area it frequently happens. If you see a massage therapist, look for Shiatsu, Tui-Na, or (not exclusively stretching focused) Thai massage since those styles are more focused on this kind of thing. But there may be quite a bit you can do yourself (depending on your other issues) that can be helpful. I guess it is unlikely to fix the real issue here but might at least help you recover faster.